


i ached for my heart

by weatheredlaw



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brother-Sister Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-21 23:23:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11954856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: He looked into her eyes and Julia felt, for the first time in so long, safe. “I lost you,” he said, voice raw. “I won't ever lose you again.”





	i ached for my heart

**Author's Note:**

> I DON'T HAVE ANY EXCUSES FOR THIS I DON'T KNOW WHY I WROTE IT BECAUSE ALL I'M DOING AT THIS POINT IS HURTING MYSELF SO

_remember when our songs were just like prayers_   
_like gospel hymns that you called in the air_

 

* * *

 

In a little house outside a little town, a woman stood at the sink, arms sunk into warm soapy water. She felt something vibrate, heard something shake, and she felt a cold, angry presence in her home. She couldn't see it, but she was turning already, turning to fight whatever thought it could come into _her home_ – soapy frying pan in hand, she swung, connected with her unknown attacker, and her little world when quiet.

And then – it grew _impossibly_ loud.

 

* * *

 

When her home was destroyed, Julia Burnsides was not lost. Instead, she fell. She fell and fell and she thought, for sure, this would be the thing that killed her. That was the lost thought she would have for a long time. The rock that struck her robbed her of any memory of what happened, any memory of the place she'd fallen from. She lay at the bottom of a gorge, bleeding and staring at a yellow sky which faded into blackness with the sunset.

She lay there for a long time. The gorge grew cold. Something walked toward her, sniffed at her, and left. Something else grew bolder, and began tugging on her skirt, trying to drag her from her spot.

“ _Get! Get out of here you scavengers! Go on now!_ ” A face swam into view, but Julia didn't know. Truth be told, she didn't know anything. She knew that she might die, she felt the blood trickling down her neck and she felt herself fading, but –

“Come on now, love. Let's get you somewhere safe.” And this person, this creature, _whoever_ – they lifted her and carried her and Julia, alone and tired, _so, so_ tired – she let them.

 

* * *

 

“Easy now, love. _Easy._ ” It was a woman, an old, old woman who had managed to strip off Julia's dusty, grimy clothes and get her into a warm bath. “We'll clean you up, then you can tell me who you are.”

“... I don't...I don't _know_ \--” _Julia_ , was all she could think. _I'm...Julia._

“Shh. I know. You took a nasty fall.” She glanced out the window. “You must've come from poor Raven's Roost. They'll be after Kalen now, you know. He'll be running for a long, long time, if someone doesn't kill him first.”

Julia didn't know who she was talking about. Her name was all she could remember, but who she had _been_ , the woman she was – she was dirt, here. The bathwater turned brown and filthy and she tried to apologies, but the woman shushed her again.

“Don't think on it. Rest. Who you are will come to you in time.”

After the bath, she was given something to sleep in, and the woman put her to bed.

“Who--”

“Don't think on that either. You just rest here, and get your strength back. I know you can't remember, but, you've been through an ordeal. You've lost people, I'm sure.” The woman stroked her cheek. “And I'm sure to some, you are quite lost. We'll figure you out.” The woman turned out the light, and Julia couldn't fight the exhaustion any longer.

 

* * *

 

She slept and she slept and she _slept_ – until the woman finally made her get out of bed. “Come on, up and up. You can't lay there all day.”

“ _Ugh_ , my _head._ ”

“Yes, I suspect that will smart.” She pushed Julia's hair away from her scalp and clucked her tongue. “That'll scar, unfortunately. Good thing you've got all these _curls_. You're so lovely.” She picked up her hand. “No wedding ring, but that doesn't mean much.”

“I'm...not married. I don't think. Or...maybe I am.”

“Too much,” the woman said. “Too much. We start with one thing at a time.” She handed her a dress. “You get changed and we'll make lunch.”

“It's that late?”

“ _Mmhm._ Now come on, the peas aren't going to shell themselves.”

Julia sighed and changed from her nightgown and into the dress. She carefully combed her hair, avoiding the gash in her scalp. It had been cleaned and _stitched_ , she realized, without her even knowing. Whoever this woman was, she knew what she was doing.

“I'm Elena,” she said, as Julia stepped into the kitchen. “You must be wondering.” Elena looked at her and smiled. “And you are...”

“I'm...Julia.”

“A last name to go with that?” Julia shook her head. “It might come. I couldn't find anything in your clothes to tell me something. And that town you came from was destroyed. Completely.”

“My town?”

“Raven's Roost,” Elena said. “I told you last night, they'll be after Kalen in a flash once they find out.” She _tsked_. “He's a right brute, that one. But, he'll get his.” She handed Julia a bowl of peas. “They all do, in the end.”

They passed the afternoon that way, preparing ingredients and cooking together. Julia had little to say, but Elena filled the time with enough stories and teachings.

“I could take you up the cliffside,” Elena said. “To see the town.”

Julia froze. “...I don't think I need to see that.”

“Might be somewhere there who knows you.”

“You said they were all gone.”

“They are. But folks will be coming in to look for love ones.” Elena rested a hand over hers. “You don't think you have anyone, love?”

Julia kept eating. “I don't know...”

“Well. We'll go up and see. In a few days, once you've rested.”

Julia didn't know how to tell Elena that she didn't want to – so, she didn't.

They traveled up the cliff at the end of the week. Bits and pieces of things began coming back to her, but it was fragmented, and it _hurt._

She felt, for the first time, that she had lost something greater than memory and home.

She felt like she was missing something _necessary._ Some fundamental part of herself that she could not replace or buy.

She was _missing someone._

Someone whose name she could not place.

Perhaps more than one, she realized.

“I have family,” she murmured. “I know I must, I...this place.” She stood in front of a pile of rubble and reached down.

From beneath all the brick and debris, she unearthed a charred, wooden duck.

“Is it yours?”

“I don't know.” _I know this, though. I know something._

Elena pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. “I don't want to rush you, love, but it's getting late. We need to head back before we're climbing down rocks in the dark.”

“...Of course.” Julia put the duck in the leather bag Elena had given her. As she turned to leave, though, her eye caught something. The burnt remnants of a sign, the letters of which were just barely legible, and even then, only a few:

_**\--phen Waxm ----- ides** _

She didn't know anything, but she knew that this sign was important.

So. She took it.

And she kept it for a very long time.

 

* * *

 

Eventually, she left Elena's little house in the bottom of the gorge. Whoever she was, she became just Julia. Last names weren't so important when you were working in a kitchen baking bread, or buying wood to build yourself a home.

(and that was a skill and a talent that, for some reason, she knew she must have had in the years before. someone must have taught her, years ago, when she was a girl. she considered who her father and mother might be, if they were builders. she wondered if one of them had carved the duck, or perhaps the other person, the other name on the sign.

or the person she felt was missing from her like a ghost. julia wondered. julia wept. julia _built._ )

 

* * *

 

And in the years after she grew into this new self, she wondered how much like her old self she still was. Little things would come to her in dreams – ducks and rocking chairs and lavender and windows and Kalen. Oh she sometimes remembered Kalen, but she didn't know why. She'd asked about him, and she had been told he was on the run. “Leveled a town, I heard. Good lord, girl, he didn't do that to _you_ , did he?”

No, she'd say, just a rumor I heard.

She remembered, once, a gazebo, and dancing under the stars.

She remembered more than once a pair of large, steady hands. Hands that held her face and undid the buttons of her dress and spread her legs and brushed through her hair and –

Julia breathed. She'd think of these hands, and her legs would tremble. Her body would become someone else's just for a moment, as though she were haunted by the love they'd made she couldn't remember. As if their touch was trying to find her again, and just missing the mark. She was so lonely in those moments.

Those years after Elena found her, Julia never found peace.

She did, however, find some semblance of a life. If the old Julia's life was gone, leveled along with Raven's Roost and the home she couldn't remember, then this new life would have to simply be enough. She baked bread in town and got a dog. She pictured a family she'd once had, sometimes, but they had no faces, and no names. Still, she could imagine being loved by them. It was all that kept her going.

There were men, sometimes, because she was always seeking those hands, that _touch._ But it was never right. They were enough to satisfy, sometimes, enough to placate her distress and her solitude, but Julia could never find in them what she had felt in those dreams. Those hands kneaded her breasts and spread her legs and hitched her arms over her head and their voices told her she was beautiful and she was perfect, but –

She never imagined his voice, but she knew he didn't sound like them.

She wondered if he was lost.

She wondered if he was dead.

She wondered if _she_ was dead, and this was all an elaborate dream, but...no.

Julia was alive. And she was alone. She suspected she'd die that way, and there was nothing in the world that could change that.

 

* * *

 

_And then._

 

* * *

 

She felt the song before she heard it. She felt the rush of the words of this story bleed into everything and suddenly it was there, in her mind and her heart and fingertips. She was seeing these people, she was seeing their tragedy and loss. She watched the _die_ and come back, she watched the fall in love and find family and rescue and lose and Julia _wept_. The frying pan clattered to the floor and she sobbed and she pleaded for the lives of people she didn't even know.

Where was their happy ending, she wondered. Where was their reward for all they'd done?

And then –

_And then –_

She saw his face. She knew what had happened. She saw Raven's Roost, and then –

She saw herself.

She saw _Magnus._

“Magnus, Magnus, _Magnus_ \--” Julia knew he was the one those hands belonged to, and the world came rushing in, the memories came flooding back, and she _fell_ onto the floor, on her hands and knees, gasping with the revelation, trying desperately to breathe and make sense of this new world she'd been handed.

She was Julia Burnsides, once Julia Waxman, and she had had a loving father and a husband who built her a gazebo to be married in. They'd overthrown Kalen together, and he had come back to finish what he started.

And Magnus, _her Magnus_ –

All he'd done was go to Neverwinter. She remembered, now.

_This chair smells like gramma's._

_I love you, Jules._

Ten days there, ten days back, and when he came home they were going to start a family, they'd promised one another.

“ _You're bringing me this chair back, right?”_

“ _I can. Why?”_

_She went to him, put her arms around his waist. “It's the chair I want to rock our babies to sleep in. You make us another one, and I'll put them on the front porch.”_

_Magnus smiled. “Yeah?”_

“ _Mmhm. And they'll be the chairs we get old in together.”_

 

* * *

 

Julia heaved. Bile rose up and she was sick and she was screaming and she was _alone._ Her Magnus had suffered and she'd never known. Her Magnus had saved the world, and he'd _forgotten._ She needed to find him. She needed to help him, whatever he was doing. They'd ran Kalen off together, they could do _this_ too.

She stood and grabbed her frying pan without another thought. Now the creatures that had attacked her were visible. So she grabbed her shotgun, too. And she must have been a sight, storming out of her home, gun cocked over her shoulder, swinging her pan wildly into every that came near her. But she had a purpose, now.

Julia had to get to her husband, and she had to make sure she didn't lose him again.

 

* * *

 

They must have won, she realized, when the black opal clouds that obscured the sky finally dissipated. Magnus, and those people, his family – they must have _won._ She cried, and her gun and pan hit the ground with a triumphant thud as she gathered herself and tried to figure out what to do next. She had to find him, had to _get to him_ – but how?

It took a few weeks. Julia walked and wandered, hitched rides here and there, but she would go to Neverwinter first, to see if she could find him there. Rumors and gossip and debatably reputable sources told her of the Bureau that was starting to send down agents.

“Wear lots of blue, got this bands on their arms,” someone said, and so Julia went looking for them.

She found one, managing a crew in a park, discussing clean up with a plump man in a hard hat. He was young, but he seemed official, professional, and kind. Julia waited til he was done and went up to him, clearing her throat. “Excuse me?”

He turned and smiled. “Ma'am.”

“Do you know Magnus?” she asked. “Magnus Burnsides. I'm looking for him, I--”

The man had a suddenly curious look on his face. He tipped his head to the side and looked at her, sizing her up, as if to suss out whether she was a threat. To be fair, Julia still had her shotgun strapped to her back and her frying pan tied to her side. She must have looked like...something.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “I know Magnus.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Who are you?”

Julia presses her lips together. She hadn't said it out loud yet, hadn't admitted to anyone what she had learned about herself, but...

He needed her. She needed him. That was how it had always been.

“I'm...his wife.”

 

* * *

 

Avi, the Bureau agent she'd met, took her straight to a large office downtown. His hand gripped her arm, not too hard, but firm enough to let her know he meant it when he said she needed to come with him right away. Julia could only move as fast as she could, not wanting to be _dragged_. She was forced to surrender her shotgun and frying pan at the front, albeit reluctantly so. Avi flashed some ID and made his way into the building, pushing open door after door until he came to an office with a sign outside that simply read _Director._ He knocked.

“ _Come in._ ”

Avi glanced at Julia. “There's no going back,” he said quietly. “If this is a lie, if you aren't _real_ , you won't make it out of this office. You understand that.”

“I'm real.”

“Magnus is my _friend._ I care about him, I love him. He's...like a brother to me.” Avi's gripped loosened. “I'm sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “He just...he said you were dead.” And then he opened the door and the two of them walked to the center of the room. A large orc woman stood in front of the Director's desk while a small blue dragonborn perched on the corner. They were all smiling, caught in the middle of a story. The Director looked up.

“What is it, Avi?”

“Ma'am. This woman here is looking for Magnus.” He pushed her forward. “She says she's his wife.”

The woman at the desk stopped smiling. The orc and the dragonborn suddenly stood very straight, hands going to the weapons on their sides.

“Does she now?”

“Yes, ma'am. Approached me in the park twenty minutes ago. Had a shotgun on her back,” he added.

“And a skillet,” Julia muttered.

The Director raised a brow. “I'm sorry?”

“I was armed because I spent an entire day beating those things back. They were in my _house_. I used what I had.”

“...Impressive.”

Julia scowled. She didn't come here to be scrutinized. “I want to see Magnus. I...I _need_ to see him.”

“According to Magnus,” the Director said, “and several other accounts, _you_ are dead. You died when Governor Kalen attacked the Corridor.”

“I know. I...I lived it. Believe me, I remember.” Julia looked at the floor between them. “At least...I do now.”

“Amnesia.”

“Yes.”

The dragonborn snorted. “ _Convenient._ ”

“Quiet, Cary.” The Director sighed. “I can't just let you see him. I'm sorry, but you have to understand. I'll need to verify your story, determine that you aren't the sort of thing that plays these types of games--”

“This isn't a _game._ ” Julia stepped forward, her fists clenched. The women by the desk lurched forward. “I've been _alone_ for _years._ I'd forgotten _everything_ about who I was. All I had were...were fragments! Just pieces of a person I used to be. And I forgot my _husband!_ ” Her voice broke. “I...I forgot _Magnus._ ” Julia shook. “How could I forget _Magnus?_ ”

She felt the warm, firm presence of someone putting their arms around her and realized the Director was pulling her into an embrace. She let it happen.

“He's fine,” she said. “He's alive, and he's a _hero._ ”

“He always was,” Julia murmured. “Has a complex. S'why I loved him.”

The Director pulled back. “I believe you are who you say you are. But you must understand, there are things I have to do to insure the continued safety of my family. Magnus is my family,” she said firmly. “You know that he needs to be protected, the same as he would protect anyone. That goes for his _heart_ as well.”

“I...”

“He thinks you're dead.”

Julia swallowed. “...Has he--”

“No,” Cary said sharply. “There's never been anyone else. _Never._ ”

“Then--”

“Come. We'll talk somewhere else. Cary, Killian, I need to speak with Taahko. Find him, get me into contact with. Avi, go back to whatever you were working on. Oh, and have Laurence bring Mrs. Burnside's weapons back to her, please. There's not sense in keeping them.”

 

* * *

 

She did not suffer at the hands of Lucretia. Rather, she was exonerated. A man with glasses and a kind face was summoned after she talked with Taahko.

“I'm Kravitz,” he said. “You claim to be Magnus's wife?”

“Yes.”

He glanced her up and down, walked a circle around her, and then vanished. Julia blinked, looked for Lucretia.

“It's alright. He's an agent of the Raven Queen.”

“He's a _reaper._ ”

“He's making sure you aren't an escaped soul,” Lucretia explained, as if this were going to make her _feel better._ It didn't, but Kravitz returned and smiled.

“She's the real deal.”

“You're certain.”

“Very.” He looked at Lucretia. “You should break this to him slowly,” he said. “It's...been a very stressful time for us all.”

“Of course. Thank you, Kravitz.”

He bowed. “Director,” he said, before vanishing again.

Lucretia sighed. “Well. Let's have tea, and we'll talk about how to approach this.”

 

* * *

 

In the end, they decided they should just...tell him. That they would go to him and explain the situation and however he reacted –

“Why won't he be happy?”

“I think he will. I only...when you lose someone for so long, seeing them again, when you think they're lost forever...” Lucretia gripped her staff. They were taking a carriage out of the city, toward a secluded hill surrounded by trees. “But you're...you're Julia,” she said. “He told me so much about you.” Lucretia's cheeks were wet with tears, Julia realized.

“Oh. Did you...”

“We spent a hundred years together,” she murmured. “Before I met Magnus, I never knew what having a brother could be like. Having him back with me has been a blessing that I can never take for granted again.” She looked at Julia. “All I did, everything choice I made when we found this world...it was all to make my family happy. And when I thought you had died, and he was alone, I couldn't live with myself. But now you're back, and I just--”

Julia grabbed her hand and held it tight.

“I know,” she said.

“I am so sorry you forgot him. I'm so sorry you were so alone.” Lucretia reached out and cupped her cheek. “It's hard,” she said. “ _I know._ ”

The carriage jolted as they stopped.

“Well.” Lucretia moved to get out and Julia followed. “I...think I ought to approach first. Here,” she added, and took the cloak from her shoulders. “A bit dramatic, but...” And she started heading toward the top of the hill.

Julia realized they were moving toward the frame of a house, and it was work she recognized immediately. Magnus always had a certain style, a way he put things together. He was an _artist_ with wood and stone. Their home in Raven's Roost had been perfect.

Lucretia approached and waved and Julia saw –

_Oh._

He stood there, sleeves rolled up, nails between his tooth. “ _Ha ha!_ ” He ran and picked Lucretia up, spinning her around. “You came _early._ Shit, I'm happy to see you.” He kissed her cheek. “You look good.”

“It's been two weeks, Magnus.”

“Two weeks too _long._ ” He suddenly glanced behind her, at Julia covered by a cloak. “What's, uh...what's happening?”

Lucretia stepped back and held her staff in her hands. “Someone came to us earlier this week.”

“...Okay.”

“She had...quite a story, honestly. And I wasn't sure if it was true, because so many things in this world are not.” She reached out for Magnus's hand, and he reached back. “She's come very far, Magnus. And she is real, and she is the _truth_ , I swear it.” She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it. “I would never lie to you, you know this.”

“...Lucretia...”

“I'm sorry, that I didn't know. That I wasn't...wasn't smart enough to figure it out. That I couldn't do this for you sooner, Magnus. Please, forgive me.” Julia wanted to tear off the cloak and scream at her. How could she have felt at fault for any of this? It was an accident, a tragedy she played no part in.

“I don't...I don't understand. Who--”

And Lucretia turned, and she nodded.

And Julia –

she took off the cloak.

 

* * *

 

Magnus stared. She stared back.

The years had changed him. He was rougher, wearier, older. He had grown thinner, but so had she. There used to be _more of them both_ , she realized, in more ways than one.

Julia stepped closer.

Magnus stepped back.

“This is...what is this?”

“Magnus...”

Lucretia swallowed. “She's _real_ , Magnus. She is no demon, no witch, and no figment.”

“She escaped--”

“No. Kravitz assured me.”

Magnus shook his head. “ _I don't understand._ ”

Lucretia let her staff fall to the ground and went to him, grabbing his hands and forcing him closer. “She is your _wife._ ”

“My wife is dead.”

“No,” Julia said, and he _flinched._ “Justt... _lost_.”

“...Lost.” She nodded. “But...”

He stopped, and Julia moved closer and Lucretia slipped away, along with the rest of the world. She reached up and held his face in her hands. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “But I haven't been myself for a long time.”

“ _Julia._ ” His voice cracked, and the rest of him went along with it. He broke in her hands and fell to his knees at her feet, pressing his face to her stomach, taking great, heaving breaths. And Julia broke with him, dropping down and holding him. She opened her mouth to speak, but she could only cry. She could only say his name, until they were gripping one another tight and falling into the grass of the hill, and his hands, _oh god his hands_ , they were holding her, touching her, brushing the tears away –

Lucretia left. Julia heard her carriage depart. Magnus finally stopped trembling, but neither could move.

They must have laid on that hill for an hour, touching and holding, until the sun began to set.

And he finally kissed her.

It lit her on fire, it swept her up and brought everything that was hanging in the balance rushing back. Every lost memory and every misplaced truth spilled into her and she couldn't help but howl because it was _pain_ and it was _real_ and she was _here._ He was here.

Her Magnus.

 

* * *

 

He carried her into his little cabin by the frame of the house. He carried her and they fell into bed, exhausted, and held one another until they both fell asleep.

In the morning he was still there, sleeping soundly, and Julia couldn't move. She couldn't _breathe_ , suddenly, and it all got caught in her throat until her panic was real and it roused him from his sleep.

“Julia--”

“ _I can't--_ ”

“Hey, _hey._ ” He held her close and she _screamed._

“I _lost you._ ”

“We lost each other.”

Julia shook in his arms. “We lost _everything._ ” And then: “My father. Oh, god, _Magnus_ , my dad, _my dad_ \--”

“I know.”

“He's gone, he's dead, he--” Magnus held her tighter, until she felt like she could feel her limbs again. “What have I done?”

“Nothing. You did _nothing wrong._ ”

“I didn't know, I didn't _know anything_ , I could have buried him, I could have found you--”

“You _didn't know_ ,” he said firmly, gripping her shoulders. “You can't blame yourself, and I can't blame myself either. We can't...we can't do that to each other.” He looked into her eyes and Julia felt, for the first time in so long, _safe._ “I lost you,” he said, voice raw. “I won't ever lose you again.”

 

* * *

 

It took time to get adjusted. She mourned her father properly. Magnus had a headstone made and they put it on the property.

“I'll have Angus put a tree here,” he said, holding her. “It's his favorite thing to do right now.”

“Who's Angus?”

Magnus grinned down at her. “You just wait, sweetheart.”

Julia smiled. She felt less and less like she was going to break apart around him now. And he seemed to fall back into their old way of doing things – standing behind her in the kitchen, kissing behind her ear in the spot he _knew_ sent shivers down her spine. She put her legs in his lap on the couch now, just like she used to, and he hooked his hand around her ankle and held it loosely while they read, as if to prove to them both that she was real.

Sometimes she didn't _feel_ it. There were things about her that were different, just as there were things about him that had changed, too. They told one another the stories of their lives apart. They were hard stories to tell, harder to listen to. But it needed to be done. They could never go back to the people who had married under that gazebo, but they could be _happy_ again. Julia knew that much.

And she finally met Angus, and Taako and Merle, too. She met Cary and Killian properly, and Davenport and Barry and Lup. She met everyone Magnus loved, and they folded her into their world as if she'd always been there.

She supposed, in some ways, she had.

“Here,” he said one night. “It's...your ring.” He pressed the gold band into her palm. “I've been meaning to give it to you, I just...I don't know. I wanted to, like, _propose_ again, you know? We should get married again.”

“You just want an excuse to cry in public.”

“I need no excuse to do that,” he said, and folded her hand over the ring. “You took it off to do dishes that morning, didn't you?”

“I put it into the little dish by the sink.” She unfolded her fingers and stared at it. Magnus took it.

“Can I--” She nodded, and he slid the band over her finger. “I love you,” he said.

Julia nodded. “I love you, too.”

In the last month she'd spent with him, they hadn't made love. Julia had been afraid, nervous like she'd been the first time she met him. Worried he'd see what she was and turn her away.

But here, sitting on their bed with the dim lamplight around them, candles burning on the dresser...

He was _beautiful_ , to her. And she told him so, and leaned down to kiss him before she stood and undid the clasp of her skirt.

“ _Jules._ ”

It fell to the ground, pooling at her feet. She reached for the hem of her blouse and pulled, and suddenly he was there, on his knees on the bed, fingers pressing into her sides. He dipped his head and kissed her there, lips pressing over every inch of her. Julia slid her fingers through his hair, held his head in her hands and tipped her own back, staring at the ceiling as he _touched_ her.

His hands, those _perfect hands_ , moved and slid under the waistband of her underwear, sliding them down over her thighs and to the ground. She stepped out, reached behind her and took off her bra.

“ _Fuck._ ”

“You've always had a way with words, Mags.”

“I haven't...there hasn't been... _no one_ since you.”

She bit her lip. She wished she could say the same.

But he knew. And he smiled.

“I was looking for you,” she tried to say. “I was...I _knew_ you, somewhere. You left your mark on me, and I was looking for it everywhere. But... _no one_ ,” she murmured. “No one could compare.”

He trembled under her hands. “I need you,” he said.

She nodded. “I know.” And she reached down and pulled his shirt over his head, pushing him back onto the bed before crawling between his knees and working at the belt of his trousers.

And then they were both bare, laying there before one another as they hadn't in years, and all Julia wanted to do was swallow him up, every part of him, from head to toe. She wanted everything, she wanted to _feel_ –

Magnus pulled her up, up and over until her cunt hovered over his mouth, and he leaned in and dragged his tongue over her.

Julia cried out, gripping the headboard and rolling her hips. He'd loved her this way, when they were younger. He could have laid there under her all night, he said once, and Julia remembered that he knew better than anyone exactly how to make her _crazy._

But she needed more, and she told him, in a manic whisper that was almost a scream. He urged her back down, until she hovered over his cock. She reached down and held him in her hands, stroking her thumb over the tip before guiding him inside.

Magnus's eyes flew open. He shouted, hands gripping her hips _hard_ as she slid over him, taking him inside and holding him there.

“ _Julia._ ”

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

“It's... _god_ it's been--”

“Shh.” She leaned down, felt his cock shift inside her, and kissed him. “Let me take care of you. Let me give this to you.”

“I just--”

And she sat up and _moved._ Lifting up and lowering herself down slowly at first, until Magnus found his rhythm and thrust up and into her. Their skin slid together, hands gripped sheets and fingers – she hadn't known him like this in so long, and her body was starved for it, for a feeling that she could only find after a night like this.

“ _Magnus--_ ”

“That's my girl,” he whispered. “That's my girl.”

She swore, and it was no longer just about him – it was about them both. Magnus sat up, hands gripping her close, fingers splayed over her back. Julia held him, kissed him. Her mouth hung open and she felt him smile against her, her name falling out like a prayer, a spell, a ward against anything that might try to tear them apart.

“I love you,” he said. “ _I love you, I love you_ \--”

“I need--”

“I know.” He stopped and rolled so she lay on her back. His thumb reached down and stroked her clit, circling her until she felt her orgasm swell up, and she howled into the night, her back arching off the bed as she came, clenching around him. Magnus thrust once, twice – and finally stilled, gripping her hard enough to bruise, hard enough to remind her that she was his, that he was hers, that they belonged to one another the way they would to no one else.

When he finally pulled away, they lay on their backs, gasping for air and staring at the ceiling above them. His fingers laced with her and they rested in silence for a long while before Magnus said quietly, “Give me twenty more minutes.”

Julia laughed and rolled over the straddle his waist, taking his hands and pressing them to her breasts.

“Alright,” he managed. “Fifteen.”

 

* * *

 

It wasn't hard to settle into their new life. Some days were tougher than others – the nightmares and the memories were a lot. They both held so much in their heads and hearts, and Julia knew it would never be exactly how it was, but –

She liked the changes she saw in them.

She liked Magnus's family.

She liked seeing him play with Angus, build the shelter. She liked the dogs that filled their house, and the world they made for themselves.

She liked standing in their kitchen doing dishes, her wedding ring resting in the little dish under the window.

And above all else –

Julia loved getting old with him.

They greyed in tandem. They aged together. They watched Angus grow up, and they sat on that porch, their chairs sat next to one another, and held hands until the sun went down.

“You said we'd do this,” he murmured one night. “You said we sit here and get old together.”

“I remember.”

Magnus smiled. He glanced out across the yard at the gazebo they'd renewed their vows under so many years ago, and he laughed. “What a life, huh?”

“Our life,” she said.

And he was getting old, and so was she, but there was still something there, a spark of the kids they used to be. The ones that fell in love in a rebellion, who ran a tyrant off their land, and paid the ultimate price. And still, she could not find a reason to regret the parts of her life that had led up to this.

It was not perfect, and it was not without pain –

But this was _their_ love story. And Julia wouldn't change it for the world.

 

**Author's Note:**

> title/lyrics from "the stable song" by gregory alan isakov
> 
> tumblr @ weatheredlaw


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